SHANGHAI, China — Barring an unforeseen surprise from FIBA, it appears Team Canada’s dream of a berth in the Olympics remains alive.

By no means will achieving that be easy, but following a 2-3 finish to their FIBA World Cup play here, a berth in next summer’s Last Chance Qualifier appears a lock.

“It looks to us that our goal of working to get to the Olympics is still very much there,” Canada Basketball general manager Rowan Barrett said following an 82-76 loss to Germany to put a tail on Canada’s FIBA experience.

The two wins are the most Canada has had in this tournament in a quarter of a century but there remains the feeling that it could have been so much more. Just a little more buy-in from some of the NBA talent with Canadian passports that opted out of the tournament for injury, scheduling or contract reasons could have made for a different result.

Same for just a little more consistency from the gritty group that did answer the call for the country.

“We had moments in this tournament where we played really well, and we had some times where we didn’t, and that was a microcosm of our situation this tournament,” Canadian veteran Melvin Ejim said. “Would’ve liked to have played better those first two games (losses to Australia and Lithuania), and shot it as well as we did in the game against Jordan (a FIBA record 24 three-point makes), but doesn’t always work like that. But I thought we came out, we played hard, and we tried to give ourselves a chance.”

Kyle Wiltjer, who turned heads throughout this tournament with his shooting, had a tough start to Monday’s finale against Germany but caught fire late to finish with 18 points in the loss.

He saw his team, blessed with just two NBA players, make steps throughout.

“I think it was a learning process,” Wiltjer said, choosing his words carefully. “Obviously we came up short of our goals for this tournament, but the dream is still alive, hopefully. We have a lot of bright spots from this team and a lot of guys want to represent their country. We just want to continue to get better and keep going forward.”

In an interview earlier on Monday at the Team Canada hotel, head coach Nick Nurse gave every indication that regardless of how many NBA players answer the call next summer, a core of this team has earned the right to see the job through.

Nurse said he would look to bolster this group with NBA additions but by no means was he looking to leave all of the men who sacrificed their summer this time around on the outside looking in come next June’s Last Chance Qualifier.

Nurse for the most part seemed content with the overall progress from this summer.

“I think it was a very good and very wide snapshot for me, from the training camp to getting on the road and being on the road for a long time, and then playing such good competition,” Nurse said. “We played great competition in Australia as well. I think we played teams from each part of the world which was good for us here, in the five games here and the seven games that we played prior to getting here.”

As for anything he would like to alter looking back on the summer, Nurse wasn’t at all regretful.

“Not much,” he said. “I’m pretty happy with how we worked, how we practised and I thought we played hard.”

Dennis Schroder, the Oklahoma City point guard, led Germany in this one with 21 points. Dallas forward Max Kleber had 20.

Canada’s shooting, red-hot two nights earlier against Jordan, cooled off considerably in this one as they shot just 35% from the field and only 23% from distance.

The World Cup now shifts to quarterfinal stage today beginning with Argentina taking on Serbia and Spain facing Poland.

On Wednesday the U.S. will take on France while Australia faces the Czech Republic.